TRNC Foreign Ministry Rejects Rotating Presidency Model for Cyprus

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) said that the rotating presidency model for Cyprus is incompatible with the position of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The ministry stressed that such a scheme presupposes a form of government based on a unitary state and is “diametrically opposed” to the policy of sovereign equality and equal international status.

Several days earlier, Mehmet Dana, a representative of the TRNC president’s administration, said that recognition of a rotating presidency should precede negotiations on a Cyprus settlement. The Republic of Cyprus rejected the idea.

The ministry recalled that the TRNC government’s official policy on the Cyprus issue is pursued jointly with Turkey and is based on the principles of sovereign equality and equal international status. According to the ministry, a lasting agreement on the island will be possible only after the international community recognizes the equal status of the TRNC.

“Two separate peoples live side by side on the island, and there are two separate independent and sovereign states — this is the basic reality. A policy built outside these facts will continue to be doomed to failure,” the statement said.

The ministry also criticized references to two seats for Turkish Cypriots in the European Parliament. According to the ministry, attempting to exercise this right would mean recognizing the status of the Republic of Cyprus, in which Turkish Cypriots are not represented, as well as its membership in the European Union; the ministry claims that this status was seized by force of arms in 1963.

The statement emphasizes that at the current stage, the sovereign equality and equal international status of the TRNC, which represents the will of the Turkish Cypriots, must be reaffirmed.